Updating our Governance

Last month we kicked off a program of work to update our governance and to consult with members over whether we should move to registration under federal law. We held a consultation event where members were taken through the differences between WA Associations Law and Federal Corporations Law. We released a discussion paper and have some good feedback from members and have now established a working party to generate a draft constitution for discussion.

Please keep an eye on our web page on Updating our Governance as we will post updates there, as well as email voting contacts for input along the way.

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What is IoT and what does it mean for you?

IAA is excited to be partnering with Women in Technology WA (WiTWA) and NextDC for an in-person event in Perth.

The event, which is taking place at NextDC’s P2 site on Thursday May 20 will be looking into the Internet of Things, what it is, what it can do and what it means for us and for businesses into the future.

Date: Thursday 20 May
Time: 5.30pm – 7.30pm (AWST)
Location: NextDC P2, Perth

There will be a panel discussion featuring speakers from various areas of business and academia. Prior to the panel there will be the opportunity to take a tour of NextDC’s state of the art P2 site.

Registration will open shortly and the link to register will be shared with members and on our socials. Places are limited and these events sell out quickly so if you would like to attend get in quick!

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Welcome to Megan Smith

This month we welcome Megan Smith to assist us in reviewing our technical documentation. Megan is a fibre engineer with broad experience from her time with NBN Co and Optus and will be an invaluable help in getting our processes and services properly documented. Welcome Megan!

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NextDC B2 to support 100Gbps

Following a request for greater capacity at our B2 site, IAA Engineer Aaron Chidiac headed up to Queensland this week to upgrade the Brisbane site to support 100Gbps ports.

The upgrade was scheduled for last year however COVID delayed our plans to complete the job.

Back at the start of this year you may remember IAA dropped set up fees for 100Gbps ports at all of our IXes, so if you are looking to increase your capacity through QLD-IX you now have options at both Next DC B1 and B2 sites.

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AS-SETS for each exchange

To improve BGP performance and reliability with the Internet Routing Registry (IRR), IAA has now created an AS-SET for each of our Internet Exchanges. This will allow networks who support IRR filtering to generate route filters for the Route Server sessions. The following AS-SETs have been created and will be automatically updated daily at 10am AEST:

AS7606:AS-ALL
AS7606:AS-ACT-IX
AS7606:AS-NSW-IX
AS7606:AS-QLD-IX
AS7606:AS-SA-IX
AS7606:AS-VIC-IX
AS7606:AS-WA-IX

If you have any questions or for more information email peering@ix.asn.au

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IAA team check out newest NextDC

The IAA team from Perth spent a lovely morning inspecting the newest NextDC site in Perth this month. Just a short walk from our CBD office, the flash looking, Tier 4 certified datacentre is a significant building on the Perth skyline.

The tour looked at the main areas of the datacentre including the racks and the breakout spaces located throughout the building, designed to make working there more comfortable. The team also got to hear the expansion plans over the next few years as capacity and space in the current tower fills, as well as the security measures and fallback procedures that are in place to ensure complete fault tolerance and no down time at this facility.

IAA currently does not have a presence in NextDC P2. Please let us know if you would like us to add P2 to our current list of PoPs on the WA-IX.

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Infrastructure Australia Plan

This week we met with Infrastructure Australia to hear about the national plan for major infrastructure projects. Amazed to hear of the transformation in cost and performance that peering and Internet Exchanges make, they have asked us for our thoughts on the upcoming plan to be submitted to government and we are feverishly working towards a response. Hopefully this will assist us in getting more content and services out into the regions.

If you have any comments about the above topics, or would like to know more about specific issues, please email us at policy@internet.asn.au.

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Advocacy Corner

In last month’s newsletter we announced the appointment of our new Policy Officer, Nitika Midha. Nitika has already been hard at work exploring key industry issues and policies that members might find of interest or of concern.

Model Defamation Amendment Provisions 
While many people think they can say what they like online, in truth, this is not the case, and a great deal of outrage is (often rightly) expressed when horrible things are said online. The question is, however, how much liability should there be for internet service and hosting providers? The Attorney General’s Department is updating our defamation law and refining the responsibilities of internet intermediaries in the sharing and distribution of content. Their new discussion paper asks for submissions to clarify whether grouping internet intermediaries into basic internet providers, digital platforms and forum hosts is useful for determining who should attract liability and what the threshold should be when operators are forced to remove content considered defamatory. Submissions close 19 May and NSW, South Australia and Victoria are set to enforce new provisions from 1 July.

Online Safety Bill 
Australian rules around take down and content online are stricter than in many places around the world and this is set to become even tighter. A bill currently before the Senate introduces stronger online protections for Australians and gives the eSafety Commissioner power to order harmful content to be removed, especially when platforms fail to act on legitimate cyber-abuse complaints. Additionally, the eSafety Commissioner is also given stronger information gathering powers to identify those behind fake accounts as well as a rapid website blocking power for crisis situations. If the Bill passes the Senate, service providers may need to respond to urgent removal notices within 24 hours (instead of 48). Search engine and app stores could even be compelled to remove access to services that do not comply with removal notices while ISPs may need to block access to websites altogether if a blocking notice is issued.

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From the CEO’s Desk

This month we have the usual round of upgrades and expansion projects and have kicked off the review of our governance. It’s been great to see thoughts coming in from members on what is important for how we operate and what matters to you in our governance. Thank you to those who have made their thoughts known, so please keep them coming as we work our way through the review. Please keep an eye on our web page on Updating our Governance.

Speaking of thoughts, it’s amazing also to see the list of issues coming in on regulation topics! From defamation to take-downs there are a bunch of likely regulation changes coming through and we are keen to put your point of view forward. Please don’t hesitate to let us know whether you like the regulation changes, or worry for the impact on your business.

The Perth team went on a tour of that flash new NextDC site, P2, so now we’re keen to hear whether members think we should be in there. It looks so nice and shiny; it will be hard to stay away!

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IAA News – February 2021

This month we announced member eligibility for the ACCC broadband monitoring program, said goodbye to a piece of IAA history and showed off our new lab.

Read our February 2021 newsletter

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